Wednesday, 23 April 2014

Well the sassy triangle quilt is finished!!! Sunday I thought this machine quilting I will master, well I tried it on a small piece and yes it fed through beautifully and even managed to use a fancy stitch so loaded up the quilt and disaster, the weight of the quilt was too much and it would not feed so gave up! Decided I would draw circles and hexagons all over it and hand quilt. Spent the day doing this but only got about a quarter of the way and did not like what I had done so monday came and decided I would not be beaten so out came the machine again, decided I needed to lift the weight off the machine so put 2 coffee tables on top of each other next to my left hand side which took the weight and used a longer stitch guess what IT WORKED. Have to own up to the lines not been very straight but when I get better will unpick and re do them. I am feeling so pleased with myself. The binding I made from various lengths of the left over fabric which has worked quilt well. Yesterday the quilt went into the wash, confound it the washable pen I used to draw the circles and hexies has not washed out properly, not sure why as it washed out on a previous piece, fortunately I had only done them on the first 4 rows.It was a bit of a bore unpicking the hand quilting and after washing found one circle I had missed so must do that now the quilt is dry

As you can see some of the fabric is a bit distorted, there was one cotton that was a bit thinner than the others and that has caused a bit of a problem, never mind I am not showing it to the quilting police and I can learn form my errors.

I wonder why there is so little about the quilting of quilts, I have lots of books but only one seems to give much information and the magazines seem to be great at the piecing process but say quilt as desired! I am sure someone could bring out a book to help us beginners.

Saturday, 19 April 2014

May I wish you a joyous Easter celebrating the resurection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do not eat too many eggs!

I have now joined the rows on the triangle project with the Sassy quilter. More than that I have the quilt tacked to the wadding and backing. I have used cotton bump, not tried it for a quilt before, it is rather thick and as this is going to be for keeping me warm in the kitchen it might be too heavy, time will tell.

The star on the collage is the left over from when I trimmed the sides. The white brushed cotton cord is the backing fabric, thought it would work well, it has little coloured hearts all over it. Sorry about the wind, it was persistent in blowing when I tried to take the photo.

I have also finished off the CQJP block for april

I plan to put a spider in the web when completing the hanging, not sure whether it will be beaded or tatted yet

I have also been following the quillow on create and craft that Jennie Rayment is doing, we should have done 9 blocks by now but I have only done 8, the one missing is a celtic design, I have not mastered the bias strips that have to be very narrow so I will substitute another block, we have one more to do that goes on the back of the quillow, I will use this on the front and do my own thing on the back! The five pointed star should also have had binding on but I backed mine with interfacing instead.

sorry about the sizes of them they are all the same size in real life, must have stood nearer to some that others when photoing, thought a collage was the best way to show them or you would have been here all day looking at photos when you should all be stitching!! The hexagons were done on the sewing machine managed the Y seams better than I thought I would, we also had to use them on the goose tracks block. So what we have here are petal pattern, kaleidescope, dresden plate, hexagons, goose tracks, pineapple, 5 pointed star and bears paw.

Sunday, 13 April 2014

I cannot believe I had not written on my blog since march well I will make up for it now.

I was thrilled when my crazy wall hanging from 2013 was shown in the crazy quilt gatherings spring magazine fame at last! Maybe I will put it into the Harrogate quilt show in the autumn. Here is a photo for those of you who might not have seen it.

The block for bee blessed for april was the asterisk block which we were asked to do 2 ways, well of curse I always do as I am told so here is the pair I did. I always look forward to seeing what the next block will be, so gald I stumbled onto this charity BOM

I also made a mini block to add to my collection of trial blocks.

I am now doing the triangle challenge with the Sassy quilter. We had to cut out 204 60 degree triangles and last week sew them into 12 rows with 17 in each row. Today or maybe tomorrow I have to join all the rows together, hopefully getting most of them matching. here are the 12 rows prior to joining.

Next week week will complete the quilt, finished size should be 49.5" x 65" I will be straightening the sides, having read how to bind them unstraightened realise that is just too complicated and fiddly for me.

The batting /wadding should arrive early this week for the aiming for accuracy quilt so then I will think about how to quilt it, whether by hand or machine.

I attended the second meeting of the Leeds Modern quilters group yesterday, there were about 20 of us there, I am sure it is going to be a great group to belong to and not far from home either. I took the aiming for accuracy quilt and they suggested I just quilted in in diagonal lines by machine, will ponder on this as not sure if I will manage it on the machine how I would love one with a bigger arm space. I will still go to the Yorkshire Modern quilters, it is further away but do so enjoy meeting up with the ladies.I missed it last month as I was down at the Sewing for Pleasure show and will miss May as I am going to the Malvern quilt show, I go via London and stay with Cheryl and we then go to the show together, returning home sunday evening, real quality time with my great friend who is a wonderful quilter, along with many other stitching talents.

Also finished the hexie block for april, it is a basket, not mounted onto fabric yet, will wait till the end of the year before I decide what fabric to use.

well that will do for now, have one or to other things to share but I do not want to send you all to sleep.

Many thanks for your encouragement and comments etc I feel I know so many of you and count you as real friends.